This application relates to a unique system for electronically measuring the distance that a tractor and/or a trailer has traveled by using a signal generating device at a wheel hub to generate, store, and transmit data to an output device.
Tractor-trailer vehicles are used to haul numerous types of cargo to various locations. One tractor may haul several different trailers in a single day as the tractor delivers a first trailer to one location, unloads the first trailer, picks up a second trailer and drives it to the next location, etc. Also, other tractors may be taking the unloaded trailers to new locations to be reloaded. Thus, the tractors and the trailers travel different distances resulting in different total mileages for any given day.
Because the trailers are hauled by different tractors it is often difficult to determine how many miles each trailer has traveled. Tractors have odometers which keep track of the total miles traveled by the tractor, but trailers typically do not have odometers. Thus, it is important for a vehicle operator to know how many miles a trailer has traveled during a specific day and how many total miles the trailer has traveled.
The most common method that is used to keep track of tractor mileage is a mechanical odometer that is well known in the art. Mechanical odometers, however, do not have the capability of storing data for each day of operation for a specific vehicle. Another disadvantage with a mechanical odometer is that it has a fixed ratio for a given tire size on the trailer, making it an inflexible unit. Other vehicles have used electronic hub odometers which utilize infrared LED to send data to a remote location or to send data to a micro computer. These systems are expensive and do not have the capability to store the data in the odometer itself. Also, these systems are not capable of storing data from other sensors and relaying that data to an output device when activated.